In Game 6 of last year’s World Series —Rangers up, 3 games to 2 — Cardinals third baseman David Freese gave Texas the lead when, trying to one-hand an easy pop, the ball popped out of his glove. Freese’s homer in the 11th won it, however.

Throughout the off-season, everywhere Freese appeared — including the Ellen DeGeneres Show — he spoke of dropping that ball, how he figured he’d cost the Cardinals the World Series, how that error would dog him and bug him the rest of his life.

Friday, Game 5 of the NLDS, Cards down two in the eighth to the Nats, who had two on … Pop fly hit to Freese. He one-handed it.

* The Tigers’ Delmon Young is in town to play the ALCS against the Yankees? Wouldn’t it then be worth telling a national audience, which may not have known, that during Young’s last trip here in April, he was arrested for an early-morning, drunken assault during which he spewed anti-Semitic slurs?

Nah. No one on TBS was prepared to speak such a truth. John Rocker was a no-good creep, but Young gets a pass?

And while it may seem pertinent to viewers Alex Rodriguez seems to be off PEDs — after swearing that he never did them, then finally admitting he lied — no one on TBS has been prepared to suggest Rodriguez’s batting is suffering from anything but his age — as if aging bothered Barry Bonds.

Instead, TBS’ preparation has been devoted to foolishness.

Anyone who has followed the Yankees the last few seasons — and that includes TBS — should know by now that Robinson Cano often isn’t much interested in running to first base.

During Saturday’s opener of the ALCS, the Yankees had the bases loaded, two out, when Cano was out by a hair on a pitcher-deflected ground ball to short. Cano slammed his helmet in protest. TBS tape showed Cano turning it on, the last few steps — but we only saw how he finished, not how he started.

In Cano’s next at-bat, after hitting a grounder to first, he was seen, live, in a jogging start. Prince Fielder dropped the ball, but had plenty of time to toss to the pitcher covering.

It’s so confusing. When, at its highest level and at its biggest moments, did running to first and catching flies with two hands become both optional and unspeakably irrelevant? Or am I crazy?

* Not even the most deadly serious of matters allows Substance to win one against Style.

It strikes me that if these public relations excesses were removed in favor of the simple but conspicuous — pink ribbons worn on caps, pink ribbon decals on helmets — the message would be just as clear and hundreds of thousands of dollars could instead be donated for cancer research.

Or am I way off, lost at sea?

Rutgers unis keeping school in red

Jersey newspapers regularly carry stories about how Rutgers, a state university, is in a cost-cutting financial bind, how professors are being bought out or laid off, how RU’s “big-time football” plan has cost the school and subsidizing students irretrievable millions.

Yet, there were the Scarlet Knights Saturday on SNY, playing in their latest black-accented uniforms and helmets. For 12 scheduled games and roughly 90 players, Rutgers has four different ensembles. A home and away uniform/helmet is no longer enough?

* At a time when the NFL asks that we think of it as extra tough on players who commit crimes off the field, and on those who commit, even accidentally, acts that cause concussions on the field, the NFL continues to promote Ray Lewis as its preferred promotional, commercial TV representative.

A man so unrepentantly and unapologetically brutal, he claims to not care about being repeatedly flagged and fined for head shots, a man who was suspended after pleading guilty to obstructing justice in a still-unsolved double-homicide — he later reached a settlement with the victims’ families — remains the NFL’s marquee star!

Wednesday, Showtime’s NFL co-produced “Inside the NFL” announced the addition of a special man as focus of a special “project.”

Who? Lawrence Taylor.

Take it Patsy: “I’m crazy, crazy for feeling so blue. . . ”

* Following a week loaded with analyst-served baloney platters and two games called by Mike Mayock (NFLN’s Steelers-Titans, NBC’s Stanford-Notre Dame), Phil Simms’ simple, sensible English on CBS’ Colts-Jets yesterday was like a cold compress.

When the Jets called time with 1:10 left in the first half, their ball at the Colts’ 8, third-and-1, Simms said, “Why?” He and Jim Nantz then noted there was plenty of time for the Jets to score without returning the ball to Indy, also with time to score.

In the third quarter, when the Colts disputed an intentional grounding call, Simms observed that either way it was likely “insignificant” as Indy next would be punting from midfield. And not once did Simms mention either team’s “lack of verticality.”

* Reader Gary Sparago has identified the leading candidate for Quote of the Decade. It comes from 38-year-old new Knick, the unretired Rasheed Wallace, after a reporter asked when his conditioning program would allow him to join the team:

“It’s not up to me; it’s up to Coach Woodson. I’m not one to complain.”

As Sparago notes, Wallace, although not one to complain, is the NBA’s career leader, with 304, in technical fouls.